You Can’t Write About That….yet

It’s the product company dilemma: you want to blog about the latest project milestones and bleeding-edge technology that your company has in development that you know will be a game-changer, but you have to hold back, keep things under  wraps, and wait. Not that there isn’t plenty to write about – you can talk about the products that are out there already, customer success stories, and problem areas you’re trying to address. But much like the tragedy-focused 24-hour news cycle, it just doesn’t compare to the sizzling hot, fresh-off-the-presses technology news that people want to hear about. Let’s face it: people, generally speaking, want to be dazzled.

And what makes blogging restraint even more difficult is that the SharePoint crowd loves to be entertained. The loudest voices out there are typically consultants and experts who are in the trenches, deploying solutions, and chatting it up about every cool tool, trick and triumph they encounter. Sometimes I envy the consulting class of this business for their ability to freely discuss their latest projects and the technologies they encounter.

At Microsoft, I hated the fact that much of what I worked on could not be discussed outside of the firewall – and sometimes even within the firewall – as the internal battles raged (and still rage) over what our hosted SharePoint business could and should look like. Once outside of Microsoft, I was intent on finding an company and role that would allow me to speak my mind and openly discuss our technologies. People who know me would agree that I am a chatty guy who really likes technology.

Now that I’m on the outside, and own the marketing voice for echoTechnology, I realize how important it is to pace yourself on your external communications. Not that I didn’t realize this within Microsoft – but on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is being anal retentive surrounding all corporate messaging, and 10 is having the personal cell number of Perez Hilton, Microsoft was at a 1.5 in regards to freedom of the employee press (in my humble opinion). At echo, it’s more like a 4 or 5 during the build cycle, but an encouraging 7 to 8 after release.

For now, it has more to do with coming up to speed on the technology, and then sharing that knowledge with the world.